According to data
projections based on World Bank figures, nine countries

that rely heavily on
roubles sent home from Russia could collectively lose

more than $10bn in 2015.
Photograph: Jussi Nukari/Rex Features

Russia’s rouble
crisis is posing a major threat to countries along its southern fringe, whose
economies rely heavily on billions of dollars shipped home every year by their
own citizens working within Russia.

The 50% drop in the
rouble has not only decimated the value of remittances sent home by workers
from the Caucasus and central Asia, but is discouraging migrants from staying
in Russia to earn a salary for themselves and their families. According to data
projections by the Guardian, based on World Bank figures, nine countries that
rely heavily on cash sent home from Russia for their economic buoyancy could
collectively lose more than $10bn (£6.6bn) in 2015 because of the weak Russian
currency.

“I’ve sacrificed starting a family, I’ve sacrificed any kind of
normal life to work here, and now I’m only able to send home a few hundred
dollars a month,” said Aziz, who works at a car repair plant in northern
Moscow. His regular job and some moonlighting as a cab driver has typically
earned him around £600 per month to send home to his parents and sisters, who
live in the Fergana valley inUzbekistan. Now he is lucky
to earn half that sum. “I’m starting to think there is not much point in
staying. Life is miserable enough here anyway, the only reason to be here was
for the money. I think it could be time to go home.”

Aziz is not the only person thinking about leaving. As the
economic situation in Russia deteriorates, authorities have also introduced a
new harsher system for obtaining work permits for migrant workers. Currently,
there are millions of citizens of former Soviet countries working illegally in
Russia.

“So far people are not leaving en masse, mainly because they are
worried they won’t be able to come back,” says Gavkhar Dzhurayeva, who runs an
organisation offering free legal support to migrant workers. “However, lots of
people are talking about it, if things don’t improve.”

The tendency could be problematic for Russia too, which is
expected to rely on immigrant labour for the formidable building projects as
the country prepares to host the 2018 World Cup.

According to the World Bank,
21% of Armenia’s economy, 12% of Georgia’s, 31.5% of Kyrgyzstan’s, 25% of
Moldova’s, 42% of Tajikistan’s, 5.5% of Ukraine’s, 4.5% of Lithuania’s, 2.5% of
Azerbaijan’s and 12% of Uzbekistan’s, rely on remittances.

These are some of the highest rates in the world. Of the five
countries globally whose GDP is most reliant on these payments, three are
former Soviet republics. In most of these cases money from immigrants in Russia
comprises a significant portion of these inflows. About 40% of remittances to
Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine are from Russia, rising to 79% for Kyrgyzstan.

Already, the sharp decline in the rouble has forced currency
devaluations in Turkmenistan this month, and speculation that Kazakhstan’s
tenge may need a further devaluation against the dollar after a 19% move last
February.

The economies of the region are strongly tied together, with
Belarus sending more than half of its exports to Russia, and the nascent Eurasian Economic Unionsupposedly
tying together Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan as a single bloc. Armenia and
Kyrgyzstan have also joined. In addition to the plummeting rouble, these
countries will also have to deal with a potentially huge shortfall in
remittances, which cannot but have an effect on GDP.

In October 2014 the World Bank estimated that remittances for
the year to the nine countries mentioned earlier would have totalled $33.3bn by
the end of 2014. Of this figure, about $19bn would have been outflows from
Russia.

At the time of the World Bank estimate, one US dollar exchanged for 40
roubles. By the end of the year, the currency had lost about 50% of its value.
If that new rate held steady throughout this year – and remittances were
otherwise unchanged – their value would drop precipitously in 2015, to just
$7.6bn.It is also worth noting that the figures given are the official
numbers, sent via bank transfers. The real amounts, which include wads of
dollars brought home in person by migrants or given to friends to carry, are
likely to be much higher.A weak rouble over a sustained period of time would have a
minimal impact in the Baltics, but in several other countries the effects could
be felt far more. In those countries where GDP relies so heavily on migrants
sending money back home, a prolonged currency crisis throughout 2015 would, all
other factors remaining the same, potentially even lead to double-digit
economic contraction.Most vulnerable are the central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan, where the ailing economies and dictatorial political systems are in
large part propped up by the money from its nationals working in Russia.In Uzbekistan, ageing dictator Islam Karimov said in 2013 that
migrant workers who went to Russia were “lazy” and should find a job at home,
but in reality, there is little work in Uzbekistan, where £100 per month is
considered a good salary and many towns simply have no opportunity for work at
all. Regional experts say that if the money flow from migrant labourers dries
up, rulers like Karimov would be in serious trouble.“If oil continues falling and the rouble continues falling, then
migrants will begin to return home,” says Daniil Kislov, who runs fergana.ru, a
central Asia news portal. “There are 2.4 million Uzbek migrants in Russia, and
those are just the official figures. These people and their families are all
surviving because of money made in Russia. Essentially Russia has saved
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan from revolution, and if all these people return it
will cause a social explosion. Not today, but maybe in a year, or two, or
five.”